â4 JOHN READE ON THE LITERARY FACULTY 



of ancient date during his travels in South America which he may be expected to give 

 to the world before long. " What would not one now give," says this last writer, in his 

 introduction to the Ollenta drama (as quoted by Dr. Brinton), " for those preciou.s relics of 

 Inca civilization which the half-breed lad (Garcilasso de la Vega) allowed to slip from his 

 memory ! " The drama just mentioned is the most famous of such compositions in the 

 Quichua tongue. It treats of love and war, has an ingenious and eventful plot, and the 

 dignity of the chief characters and incidents is relieved by the jokes of some of the minor 

 personages. (Brinton : Aboriginal American Authors, p. 5G). It is rather singular that Seiior 

 Santa Anna Mery, whose article in the Revue du Monde Latin on Les aborigènes du Brésil I 

 have already mentioned, should, in a description of the porasses or pantomimic dances of the 

 Brazilian Indians, have almost repeated in substauce what Signorelli says of the sacred 

 ballets of the Peruvians. "All the sufferings of human life," says M. Mery, "all the 

 great deeds of their ancestors, forced marches, struggles, persecutions, captivity, the 

 anguish of defeat, are reproduced in those mimic dances, which are, iu fact, dramas of the 

 most thrilling character." 



If the letterless Peruvians could be said to have a literature of their own, with 

 stronger reason may such an honour be ascribed to the civilized peoples of Yucatan and 

 Mexico. I have already spoken of their books in symbolic writing. Some of the Spanish 

 writers of a past age quite complacently confess the destruction of all such volumes that 

 they could get possession of on the ground of idolatry or immorality ; and in some cases 

 they sincerely believed that they were doing right. But the loss is irreparable and we 

 cannot bless the memory of those who caused it. " The Maya Chronicles," edited by Dr. 

 Brinton, the first volume of his Library of Aboriginal American Literature, contains the 

 five chronicles in the Maya or Yucatecj^ue language composed shortly after the Conquest 

 and carrying back the history of the country many centuries. These are supplemented 

 by a history of the conquest written by a Maya chief in 15(32. This is one of the most 

 important of the contributions to the aboriginal literature of America that have as yet seen 

 the light. Apart from its great historical interest, enhanced by Dr. Briuton's excellent 

 notes, it affords an opportunity of contrasting the genius of the Maya with that of the 

 Aztec or Mexican langviage. 



Allied with the Maya is the Quiche, in Avhich there is cj^uite a respectable literature. 

 The Popul Vuh or National Book, of which a translation was published in Prench by 

 Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, is a surprising production, the story of the hero being of 

 thrilling interest and the language sometimes of remarkable beauty. The story of Votan 

 belongs to the Tzendals, another branch of the Maya race. It was written down in the 

 lYth century by a Christianized native whose manuscript afterwards came into the hands, 

 first of Bishop Nunez de la Vega and secondly of Ramon Ordonez y Aguiar who showed 

 it to Cabrera in 1T90. But where it is now is unknown. The Quiche people had also 

 their dramas — the most interesting being that of Rabinal Add — a story of successful auda- 

 city made irnexpectedly tragic by the death of the forceful hero, virtually bj^ his own 

 act. 



The " Annals of Chairhtitlan " is a Nahua or Mexican manuscript which was first 

 translated by Pairstino Chimalpopocatl Gralicia, after whom Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg 

 christened it the Codex CItimalpopoca. Dr. BT-inton has included it also in his Library. 



